Keep in mind that there’s such a thing as “Hollywood Accounting”. Studios will claim big box office, and then turn around and tell the IRS and stakeholders that their pictures never made money.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

It's just a metric for success and popularity.

Once upon a time, the theatre was the only place to watch a film.

So, the box office takings were the only income and sole measure of the success of a film.

That metric has hung around, but the modes of film consumption have expanded.

I want to add that the box office income is simply one of the only objective metrics to compare the success of films.

Because people think mo money = mo good.. its core ideology of capitalism.

Money is all that matters. Is a movie good? Well, let's look a the box office. Same in all facets of life. It's pretty gross and bugged me for years and years. I have spent so long developing a habit of ignoring those types of numbers in news. It's almost automatic at this point. Just in one ear and out the other.

That and doesn't Disney still own ABC? I remember ABC used to always cover Disney movies like it was newsworthy. Conspiracy hat on, all these companies are in bed together and their number one goal is to take your money. And mine. Americans love a front-runner. I was raised to believe we rooted for the underdog, but that's bullshit. If the news can hype a movie, people will think Other people are spending money on it. I better as well. If nothing else, then just for social situation bullshit. So the numbers go up. The movie studio loves it. They make more money, spend more on ads. The TV studios love it, they make more money. People love it, they're all part of a club now, if only marginally poorer. And now it's just a race to the bottom. Highest $$ wins. Less Kubrick, more Bay.

tl;dr You shouldn't give a shit. I don't.

More money means more people saw it. That's it, whether you care is up to you

Because the film industry is interested in it. It is the first and most public bit of information on what movies are popular and trending.

High box office revenue can indicate potential for sequels, job offers for the directors/stars, merchandizing.

If Iron Man had bombed at the box office, we wouldn't be in MCU phase 6.

there are some interesting stories like Office Space, which basically did nothing at the box office because it was barely shown or marketed.. but as soon as people got the chance to see it on cable, it became a huge phenomenon, so it was obviously a giant missed opportunity..

I think it's simply because people want to feel like they're in "the biz" So rather than talking about how good something is, they talk about how much money it makes, how many people did something, what's the revenue. It also is a bit hard to quantify "A good movie" but it's SIMPLE to quantify a "popular" or "revenue generating" movie (At least in terms of revenue). So rather than discussing the movie itself we now discuss "how popular it is". Kind of sucks in my opinion because all it means is "Other people like it". It's like the social media of news stories. Then again you don't want to like something that isn't popular, do you?

But I mean it probably comes down to "Variety did it so it was the news of the industry, and then others did it and didn't notice a change in readership (or saw a positive change) and so they did it more.

I hate it because income feels like a number that the studios really care about, but what about number of tickets sold? A movie released this year has a huge head start on box office income when compared to a movie from 20 years ago, since ticket prices have easily doubled. Plus, theatres often have different prices for students, children, seniors, matinees, and even IMAX/3D. So wouldn't it be more apples to apples over time to compare number of tickets sold, rather than total income?

I try not to read too much into it. The box office income is obviously important in terms of what sort of films may get produced in the future. If a movie flops, it will be unlikely to get a sequel, but more broadly, the whole industry may pivot towards one genre or another depending on recent successes.

But I often wonder about entertainment columnists who write things like "They really liked this film over in China but not in North America." How good an indicator are box office sales of how much people really enjoyed a film? The reason I ask is based on my own viewing habits. When I feel like going to a movie, I look at what's showing and think ok, that looks pretty interesting. I might read a review or watch a trailer, but at the end of the day, I'm taking a risk that I will like it. I may or I may not. And either way, it is unlikely that I would see it again at the theatre.

So I guess what I'm saying is that for me, at least, a ticket purchase is not an automatic vote of confidence that I think this film is great. But maybe I'm not a typical moviegoer, introvert that I am? Maybe the normal pattern is you see it with a couple friends, and if you like it, you gather more friends and see it again and again? If that's more the way it goes, I can understand why box office sales would truly correlate to a film's worthiness. But if more people are like me, it could just be that the movie was really hyped up and people decided to go see it even if they come out of there going wow, that sucked. But they still paid for the ticket regardless, which reflects well on box office sales.

Fun exercise... Look at the opening weekend box office numbers and figure out what 90% of it is. That is what the distributor made from the movie for THAT WEEKEND. They will continue to make 90% for at least a week. After that it will drop some. Eventually the theater will actually get the lion's share of the box office, something like 6-8 weeks after the movie comes out. Do your local theaters a favor, don't go see movies opening weekend, call the box office each week to find out what movies will be leaving that week and go see it then. Or, if you absolutely feel the need to go see it opening weekend, budget for the largest popcorn and drink you can afford. They are the highest profit margin items on the menu. The tickets may cost 30-45 bucks for a date night, but the theater only sees $3-$4.5 of that at the top end, even less for more anticipated movies. That is why concessions are so expensive, it is literally the only way they can stay afloat and Disney has even tried demanding 50% of opening weekend concessions for some movies.

This is why so many cinemas are failing, both chains and locals. Spread the word, share this info, save our silver screens and send a message to the big media companies that they are being too greedy.

Dick-measuring contest. They use those numbers as a metric of success but it's not. For example "Shawshank Redemption" bombed box office, so did "The Thing" and number of other cult movies. They bombed box office but later became cult movies that are still earning money.